Solera Project - Flanders Red

[tarmenel]

So I'm juggling a few balls here but thought I'd get this one up in the air and just layout my plans and get some feedback from you wise souls.

Looking at starting a Solera of Flanders Red. I'll brew a 20 liter batch of Flanders Red every three months and build up a to 3 Carboys of Solera. After the third brew I will start taking off 10 liters from the first carboy and then transfer 10 liters over from the youngest to the oldest carboy.

My calculations are that I'll then have 10 liters to bottle along with 10 liters of fresh brew that I can mix with. I'm thinking that 5 liters I'll bottle and the other 15 liters I'll age over fruit for a further 2-3 months.

Does this system sound reasonable and true to the Solera system?

The next thing will be getting a solid Flanders Red recipe.

 

[tarmenel]

Recipe I've taken from BYO

18 liter batch
Est OG 1.058 SG


2.4kg Vienna Malt
1.1kg Pilsner Malt
0.9kg Wheat Malt
0.4kg Aromatic Malt
0.4kg Crystal Light
0.15kg Crystal Dark
21g Hallertauer
Lacto and Brett L that I got from a friend.

 

[sweetcell]

Looking at starting a Solera of Flanders Red. I'll brew a 20 liter batch of Flanders Red every three months and build up a to 3 Carboys of Solera. After the third brew I will start taking off 10 liters from the first carboy and then transfer 10 liters over from the youngest to the oldest carboy.

My calculations are that I'll then have 10 liters to bottle along with 10 liters of fresh brew that I can mix with. I'm thinking that 5 liters I'll bottle and the other 15 liters I'll age over fruit for a further 2-3 months.

Does this system sound reasonable and true to the Solera system?

The next thing will be getting a solid Flanders Red recipe.

3 months isn't much time between brews. when you're doing your third brew, the first carboy will only be 6 months old. maybe in your hot location the beers will develop faster... the standard length of time between solera brews is a year.

you wrote "along with 10 liters of fresh brew that I can mix with" - do you mean fresh, unfermented wort? you need to be careful if you're thinking of mixing fresh wort, with all its sugars, and aged sour beer and then bottling.

in the solera method, you would remove 10 L from the older carboy/barrel, move 10 L from the middle carboy to the oldest, move 10 L from youngest to the middle one, then top up the youngest 10 L with fresh wort. if you then mix fresh wort with the 10 L you pulled out of the oldest carboy, you'll need to let that age out so the bugs can ferment out the fresh wort. alternately if you want to bottle immediately, you'll be using the fresh wort as your priming sugar - so you'll want to calculate how much is added.

 

[tarmenel]

I'll try to clarify how I want to get things up and running.
In March 2016 I'll brew a 20 liter batch and start fermentation in carboy #1.
In June 2016 brew another 20 liters and start fermentation in carboy #2.
In September 2016 brew another 20 liters and start fermentation in carboy #3.

By December 2016 I'll have a nine month brew ready in carboy #1 that I want to take 10 liters out of it.
Then 10 liters from carboy #2 to carboy #1
And 10 liters from carboy #3 to carboy #2
Then brew 10 liters to fill carboy #3.

Hope this makes sense. I also am thinking of brewing as above till September 2016 and then wait until March 2016 before starting to take off 10 liter batches every 6 months.